LOS ANGELES, April 28 (Reuters) - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday declared a "state of emergency" for the state over an
outbreak of the swine flu that has killed 149 people in Mexico.

So far state and local officials have confirmed 13 cases of the swine flu in California. None has been fatal, although Los Angeles County Coroner's
officials were investigating two deaths as possibly related to the disease.

Mexico City declared a state of emergency when people started dying. I am not proclaiming the end is nigh or the Four Horsemen are travelling to
California, but you only implement an emergency when human life is lost and a further population is at risk.

you know, if all these media broadcasts and info pages were us on ATS we would be demanding citation, links.... there is so much that is just heresay
and downright wrong information coming out of the media. the press are scare mongering, have been since early today...

I'm pretty well convinced by now that IF the WHO raises the level to a 5 or 6 that there is "another agenda" at play.

I live west of San Antonio Texas...hundreds were in town for the Fiesta 10 celebration the past week and cases being reported here are very low.

Also: we are a week away from the very popular in this area Cinco de Mayo celebrations (May 5th) and there are NO warnings and NO cancellations at
this time that I've heard of...many do bring up family from mexico for both of these events.

I'm just sayin'...did it really start in Mexico because if so,it seems to be died down as suddenly as it started.

As I noted earlier, the main difference in Mexico is that they are 90% Catholic. I think this thing should be more appropriately called the "Easter
Flu", because if you look at the timelines and incubation periods, they coincide with what you'd expect if it was spread during the massive Easter
celebrations where tens of thousands of people congregate in the churches. This cultural difference would account for the different rate of infection,
i.e., slower outside Mexico, and the anomalous death rate: there were, in fact far higher numbers of people who got sick and recovered unnoticed. What
you see as the reported numbers are actually the worst cases of a very large number of exposures. This would explain what we are in fact
experiencing.

With luck and care, this should not spread too far elsewhere too fast, although it says nothing about what may happen in the fall. What we see then
could make Mexico's experience common.

WASHINGTON, April 28 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama asked congressional leaders for an additional $1.5 billion dollars on Tuesday to
enhance the U.S. response to the swine flu outbreak.

"Out of an abundance of caution, I am asking Congress to include in the fiscal year 2009 supplemental budget request that I sent to you earlier this
month an amount of $1.5 billion to enhance our nation's capability to respond to the potential spread of this outbreak," the president said in a
letter to congressional leaders.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the funds could be used to build up antiviral stockpiles, develop a vaccine, support the U.S. public health
response to the outbreak and help international organizations stem its spread.

On thinking about it apart from Nicola sturgeon taking press conferences daily, the uk government has gone missing. We dont have the same kind of news
networks over here as in America and sometimes I think that is a realy good thing.

On a diffirent note, I posted yeterday that some social work, learning difficulties crisis contingency plans had been initiated at the level 4
increase. There have been no pre action communications to go to stage 2 of the contingency plan and those who are running it expect to be informed
long before the news media broadcast a level 5 or pandemic state.

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